


Cassette Side A

by fullfeature



Category: Stranger Things (TV 2016)
Genre: Billy is... Billy lmao, GRATUITOUS song lyric references, Hints at Steve having a bit of a breakdown, M/M, Smoochy smoochy, drabble tbh
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2018-07-19
Updated: 2018-07-19
Packaged: 2019-06-12 18:06:51
Rating: Mature
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,237
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/15345522
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/fullfeature/pseuds/fullfeature
Summary: "You gonna kill me, Princess?" Billy asks. "I didn't think so."





	Cassette Side A

**Author's Note:**

> **rises from the dead to post this BS**

Billy is a wet dream in the night, rolled up tight like a joint in denim on denim and sucking in his cheeks on a cigarette—savoring—like he’s never gonna get another puff. Steve’s hands ache from clenching his bat in the cold. Billy’s presence doesn’t loosen their locked joints, but it does pull his ears to the sounds of the camaro, the wet inhale and exhale of Billy’s chest: bare to the navel in a signature red button up.

The forest still stands on the edge of the clearing, pitch dark and full of _something_ , but that’s Steve’s problem, not Billy’s. And he’s gonna _tell_ Billy that, eventually. When he unlocks his jaw and unclenches his hands and takes a breath of fresh air and stops _freaking the fuck out_. Because—because—they had said—Dustin had said that he’d heard something along the airwaves, something high frequency and pitched like a scream. Something like before.

But all Steve had found was Billy, illuminated by the moon and listening to Blue Oyster Cult on cassette. And God what kind of fucking dumb luck did Billy carry on his shoulders, playing _(Don’t Fear) The Reaper_ to taunt the devil already at his heels. Billy leans against the open car door, hips cocking back and thumb of his free hand tracing down the window seam in a slow, rhythmic caress. The song ends and Steve seizes the opportunity, compacts his courage into this moment and—

“Hargrove!” Pink Floyd answers him ( _“Time to go!”_ ) and Billy doesn’t jump, but he doesn’t _not_ flinch, either. Billy turns slow and Steve ignores the red lining of his eyes, ignores the bob of his cigarette and the way his posture goes rigid at the sight of Steve’s bat. “You shouldn’t be out here so late.”

Billy doesn’t react, sucks on his cigarette again, blows smoke and lets Pink Floyd sing in their silence ( _“You are only coming through in waves.”)_ . Finally Billy flicks his smoke to the side, stamps it with his boot and throws his arm on top his hood, posture open, unafraid. _Come and get me_ , he says, _eat me up_ . “Pretty boy, aren’t _you_ out a little late?”

Steve takes another step closer, then a few more. Now he can hear the static that comes with recording songs secondhand off the radio—Fleetwood Mac. He spares a second the imagine a younger Billy hunched over the stereo, waiting for his favorite songs to come on, waiting to hear _The Chain_ during throwback hour. He tries to reconcile that Billy—careful, excited, childish—and the one in front of him. It isn’t an easy task. “Same to you,” Steve says. ( _“You would never break the chain.”)_ Billy shrugs, so Steve gets to it: “You shouldn’t be out here. Go home.”

That is the wrong thing to say. Billy looks up, sharp where he had been playful before. Fleetwood Mac wails about the chain, the shadows, and Billy’s face creases into anger, into a sneer. “I don’t think you should be telling me what to do, Harrington, unless you want a repeat of last time.” Bad Company plays next, a mirror to the elevated pulse in Steve’s fingers, and the dust stirs at Billy’s feet like the wind is pushing him to pummel Steve’s face in.

( _“Bad company, I can’t deny.”)_ Steve remembers last time. Remembers the ache in his jaw and the scar on his nose and the swelling of his eye, the blood on his face and his hands and the way he dreamed of Billy: looming over him, contorting into a flower-faced monster that ripped his skin from his bones to eat his veins. “It’s not safe,” Steve says instead.

“It’s not safe,” Billy mocks, throwing his hands wide again. _Come and get me,_ he implies, _come and try._ AC/DC blares out of the camaro, ( _“Thunder!”)_ and Steve grips his bat, tips it up just a tad. “You gonna kill me?” Billy asks, takes a step forward, “Yeah, Princess? Gonna split me open?” Billy’s tongue licks his bottom lip, like he _likes_ that idea.

“No,” Steve says. _I’m trying to save you,_ he thinks.

“No,” Billy parrots back, taking another step, grasping the bottom of Steve’s green jacket in his fingers. “No, Princess, I don’t think you are.” He puts one warm palm on the side of Steve’s neck—and _jesus_ —

Steve can’t not think about it: last Friday night on Tommy’s balcony, the hot, wet sounds of Billy kissing Tracy Fields, the way Billy bit her lip and held Steve’s gaze. The way he smells right now, deep and woodsy, but like smoke and bourbon too. Steve doesn’t move, barely breathes, just tries to keep still, tries to reason with himself.   _This is dangerous,_ he thinks.

And Billy agrees. “Maybe I’ll split _you_ open,” he whispers. (Pink Floyd again—the long quiet intro to _Us and Them_ .) Billy’s fingers graze his bat clenched fist, and he looks at Steve eye to eye, bending his head a little, “Maybe someone already has.” He pries the bat from Steve’s hand and Steve _lets him_. Let’s him take his safety away, lets Billy place his thumb in Steve’s palm, a facsimile of the comfort of holding hands.

“You don’t like me,” Steve says, whispering too. _(“And who knows which is which, and who is who.”)_ His free hand molds to the dip of Billy’s back, like Billy’s a _girl_ , like he’s trying to trap Billy there, in his space.

“I really, _really_ don’t like you.” The last word hangs on Billy’s bottom lip, brushes Steve’s on it’s way out.

Steve tilts his head to the side, waits a breath, waits for Billy to pull back, to laugh, to call him a _faggot_. He doesn’t. Steve slots their lips together, lets Billy lick his lips and the ridges of his teeth. Let’s Billy grasp his cheek hard, clenches the hand at Billy’s back against the urge to pull, to demand more.

Billy has no such problems. He drops Steve’s palm, leaves an iron hot trail up Steve’s ribs. His hand stills at Steve’s breastbone, where he can feel the pounding of Steve’s heart. “Scared?” He asks, a mere inch away.

Steve swallows, rolls around the idea of lying but—“Yeah,” he says _but not of this_. Kisses Billy again, doesn’t think about the monsters, just tastes Billy on his palette and feels the brand of his hands. Billy probably thinks he’s scared of the town, of their classmates, of Billy himself. It’s better that way.  

The crackle of Dustin’s voice over the radio splits them apart. “Steve? Steve?? Respond if you’re alive—don’t respond if you’re dead.”

“He _can’t_ respond if he’s dead, loser,” and that’s Max.

Her voice is what pulls Billy away. He backs up and up and up until he’s at the camaro once more. “She saved you again, Princess,” is what he decides to leave on, settling down in his driver seat and peeling away before Steve can even take an inhale that doesn’t coat his lungs in Billy’s smell.

 _I’ll split you open_ , Billy had said. In truth Steve feels more flayed, struck from the bone and peeled away. “I’m alive,” he tells the kids. He doesn’t even think about the shadows that might be following him to his BMW. Instead he thinks of Billy’s gaze— _come get me_ , he projects, _eat me up._

**Author's Note:**

> are you wishing they would've jerked each other off in the woods?? me too. maybe next time folks.


End file.
